Plumbers

American Home Shield warranty assured me on Saturday that they'd have a plumber to me by Monday. MONDAY!!!!! I could live without heat or air conditioning for two days, but how was I supposed to go without water?

Fortunately, the dispatcher at Carolina Plumbing & Water Systems had AHS reclassify my situation as an emergency and I had a pair of plumbers on the job Sunday morning. And what a pair they were. Dressed head to toe in cammo (seriously, hats to shoes), they were awfully concerned that I was unmarried. I feigned indignance (never mind the previous day's fit about being a single girl dealing with a basement flood), but they assured me that they were confident that my situation would be rectified: I would definitely get married and have many, many babies someday. (I wondered if I would be charged extra for their clairvoyance).

My cammo-loving, future-telling plumbers assessed my hot water heater, confirmed that it was the source of my flood, and drew up an estimate. After a $60 service charge, AHS would cover the cost of the replacement water heater, labor charges, and haul off of the old unit. They do not, however, fully cover "code upgrades." My house and presumably my deceased hot water heater are/were 20 years old, and Raleigh has made a few changes to its plumbing codes since then. It now requires an expansion tank ($150), 2 dielectric unions ($100), a disconnect box within 3 feet of the hot water heater ($125), and something called "T&P Mod" ($65). AHS covered only $250 of the upgrades, which left me paying $250. Coulda' been worse.

Expansion Tank

Dielectric Unions

Disconnect Box

If anybody can spot the "T&P Mod," I'll buy them a beer.